Musings of a social sciences student.

Looks like I totally went on hiatus without noticing. So hello, blog. I’m officially in college now and officially busy enough not to post on you often. BUT. I promise to post at least once a week. I swear. Cross my heart and hope to die.

I have nothing to write about right now so I’ll come back to you later.

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Recently I’ve decided to change things up a bit. I’ve already started with my blog (moved from Blogspot to WordPress), my fitness (although right now, I can’t actually do any athletic activities due to having my fourth wisdom tooth removed) and my sense of responsibility (not that I was never responsible…)

So what if it’s not a new year? So what if it’s not spring (there isn’t a spring in the Philippines anyway)? I think it would have been a bit more reasonable for me to do what I’m about to do at the start of summer, not the end. Thing is, I’ve been trying to pull myself together mentally, all summer due to certain events that are far too personal to mention (at least, not yet.)

Right now, I’m working on my room. I feel way too claustrophobic just sitting in it and it’s so difficult to move around sometimes, especially when there’s other people in my room. Yes, unfortunately, I’m not one of the lucky few who get to prance about their room as much as they’d like without having to worry about bumping into something… or someone. No, I do not live in a broom closet. The term “broom closet x 3″ best describes it. I think.

Anyway.

The “revamped room” is still a work in progress. For now I think I’ll work on my usage of parentheses (I, however, don’t see anything wrong with it.)

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I’m feeling mean right now. Do forgive me, reader, if you are offended.

Now, I’m no fluent speaker of French. I’ve been learning it for the past 5 years, but the farthest (in terms of grammar) I’ve gone is the intermediate level. Though I’m more of a Grammar Nazi in the language of English, I know my basic French grammar and I would like to pick at this little,teensy thing that has been bugging me for awhile now.

French students (who aren’t natives), whether advanced or beginner, can sometimes end up becoming pretentious, making a show of knowing another language. “Oh, how cool I am to be able to speak this!” I admit, I can be this way myself (hey, just writing this blog post reeks of pretense, doesn’t it?) but when I do decide to speak French (even when in reality, I still have a lot to learn), I do make sure that what I’m saying is at least grammatically correct.

See, honey, if you’re going to go around making use of what you’ve learnt in class, you should at least take the time to check what you’re saying.

“Je” refers to oneself. I’m sure you know that, right? You should. “J’ai”, on the other hand, means “I have.” You should also know how to conjugate avoir. You know, like: “j’ai”, “tu as”, “il a” et “nous avons.” Remember those? I mean, you should, seeing that you’ve studied that longer than I have.

Why is it important to know this? Well. One, it’s basic French grammar. It’s a prerequisite to more advanced French, which I’m sure you’re going to take soon. Two, you’ll end up making a fool out of yourself.

I’m sure “I headache” (je mal à la tête) isn’t what you meant to say. In fact, I’m pretty darn sure you meant “I have a headache” (j’ai mal à la tête). That or “I am a headache,” which would make sense as well because your grammar, even in English (your native language) can cause me headaches.

Right. So that wraps up our lesson for today. Pretentious? Sure, why the hell not! We all are at some point, oui? Mais, try not to make it so obvious. Otherwise, je vais vomir.

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My brother, our friend and I playing at the beach we lived next to. Photograph by my mother.

I was looking through old photos and decided to share a small bit of my life. Perhaps open a few people’s eyes as well. When I was about 11 years old, we had to move to Pakistan because my father had work there. I dreaded going there, actually. I knew nothing of the place other than the fact that it was close to a country that was at war, at the time. Pakistan was also experiencing civil and political unrest but that wasn’t much of a problem in Karachi. At least, it wasn’t as bad as it was in the capital.

I lived there for 14 months. Yes, it wasn’t the safest nor the best places that we had lived in. There were armed riots that caused schools to close down or send the children home. Our home was guarded day and night by two security guards. Throughout the year, save for the winter, power had to be cut in certain portions of the city at certain times of the day. In fact, because of this, we experienced a short circuit that caused a fire in the master bedroom. No fatalities though. Unless you count the air conditioning unit as one.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was an ugly place. I still hold memories that are beyond ugly. Memories that are beautiful. The picture above is one of those memories. I met a lot of people who lived there who made our 14 month stay there very much easier than it would have been if we hadn’t met them. The hotel staff of the Karachi Mariott, the fellow pinoys, the teaching staff of my school, the other expat families, whom we had playdates with, and my friend’s families. All of them.

I hope to come back, simply to photograph certain sights of the city. There may have been terrible memories there, memories that I know would give me reason not to come back but looking at these photos, somehow the good resonates more than the bad. I suppose what they say is true. You only miss a place once you’ve left.

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Recently I’ve moved from Blogspot to here. This is a little back story of my “blogging life”, which deserves to be told because right now I feel like I’m back to where I started.

For the past four months, I’ve been in search for the perfect blogging platform. Now, I’m no “noob” when it comes to blogging and when it comes to the interwebs. I’ve been blogging, graphic and web designing since I was 12 (I even had my mom buy me a domain name for my 13th birthday) and since then I’ve always had this attachment to WordPress.

I remember the days when I was one of those girls who set up a website on a free host to create free resources such as Photoshop brushes, tutorials and little glitter graphics. Looking back at myself then, I honestly wish I didn’t start out that way. It was amusing because I tried so hard to be like all these other sites and quite frankly, I wasn’t getting far in terms of frequent visitors. Then, I discovered this content management platform called Cute PHP.

A lot of the people in the community I had been a member in used it, so I thought “Okay, why the hell not?” I can’t say that was the start of my blogging though. I mostly used it for “site updates” and the only times I actually felt the need to “blog” personally, was when I felt the need to rant.

I believe the real start of my blogging was when I found Jemjabella.co.uk, through her famous Pants Awards, in which she critiques certain websites (like mine, at the time.) I don’t know what exactly compelled me to take coding and aesthetics more seriously, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the fear of being slapped in the face with a Pants Award. Like I said, I tried hard to fit in.